Tower Running's Monthly Meet at the Kyobashi HQ Tower — Fire Bureau Rookie Seira Koda Sets a Rookie Record

Tower Running, a discipline said to have originated in the mine shafts of the Southern Union of Afrika, sends competitors racing up the stairwells of tall buildings. In Tokei, the monthly "Kyobashi HQ Tower Run" — held in the emergency stairwell of the 42-story Kyobashi HQ Tower, an office building — has become a fixture, and the 25th's edition marked its 87th running. The Tokei Tower Running Club and the Fire Bureau team make up the core of the field, with scores recorded as "floors climbed, minutes, seconds." This paper does not explain the rules in detail.

Daichi Tarumi, 38, of the Tokei Tower Running Club, won cleanly in 42 floors, 11 minutes 32 seconds. A founding member of the club, Tarumi picked up his fifth meet win of the season. Afterward he said, "The wind on the landings was stronger than usual today, and my legs drifted a little near the top," adding modestly of the time itself, "There's still room to improve." Tarumi has kept at the sport for nearly a decade, and recalled days in the club's early years when fewer than ten runners showed up. "Now there's a wait-list line every month. People tend to assume it's a plain sport, but maybe the sheer simplicity of just climbing stairs is what makes it easy to stick with," he said, reflecting on how the discipline has changed.

Second place went to Seira Koda, 24, of the Fire Bureau team, who broke the meet's rookie record (the fastest time by a competitor with under a year in the sport). Koda only joined the Fire Bureau in March and said she took up tower running as part of job training. "Six months ago I was out of breath by the third floor, and I was scared to even look up," she recalled. "What makes me happiest today is that I never had to stop to catch my breath, all the way to the 42nd floor." A senior officer on her team said, "I don't remember anyone on our side improving this much in six months."

Three members of the Tokei Institute of Technology's mountaineering club joined this month's meet as invited participants. Much as the previously reported Kiko Festival on Oct. 4 has drawn growing university-club participation, organizers say tower running is seeing a similar broadening among students and are "considering formally setting up a student division starting next month." The fastest of the three invited students, a second-year, said, "Our club doesn't have many places to train for vertical movement, so the emergency stairwell is a valuable training ground. Next time I want to enter for real."

The Fire Bureau team's participation is framed as conditioning for high-rise rescue work, and the squad sends runners to nearly every monthly meet. Its captain said, "Posting a time isn't the point in itself, but once a number is on the board, it changes how the crew thinks. When someone like Koda produces results in six months, it lifts the mood for the whole junior group." According to organizers, the Fire Bureau team has taken part for three years running, and now holds joint practice with the Tokei Tower Running Club about once a month.

What looks like a sport of simply climbing stairs turned out, in the runners' own words, to be full of specific detail — the wind at each landing, how the floor markers come into view, the pacing of breath. Koda's single line about never stopping to catch her breath seemed to carry six months of accumulated work inside it. The next meet is planned for late October, again at the Kyobashi HQ Tower.